we rid ourselves of our nuclear arsenals a holocaust not only might occur
but will occur if not today, then tomorrow ... We have come to live on
borrowed time."
Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth
We wise grown-ups often advise our children
"Stop fighting, you will hurt each other,"
then calmly proceed to annihilate one another.
We breed black widows with red eyes in our labs.
War is eternal, you say.
Listen, my brother,
War's second cousin, "dueling," was once sung immortal,
the peak of honor and reason -
yet has been banished from our world and is no more.
Slavery redeemed eternal, and is no more.
And so much more, like killing me softly
with your guns and scuds
Does a lioness devour her cubs?
Does a gardener destroy his buds?
Let's awake and change our absurd "nuclear deterrence song",
for now we know,
in a nuclear war, or any war,
there are no winners any more.
We breed black widows with red eyes in our labs.
Let's remember in our canines in the blood of our temples
in a nuclear war or any small war, there are no winners anymore,
and throw War quickly in the historic dirt-bin it deserves,
Let's not leave this terrible legacy to our children
in the twenty-first century,
Let's save cubs and buds before the fall,
or in the nuclear pit we'll all fall.
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